Ban on US adoptions 'won’t be canceled or altered'

Russia and the US will continue cooperation in the field of adoption, but the ban imposed last year will remain in place, presidential plenipotentiary for children’s rights has said.

Pavel Astakhov talked to journalists in Washington, DC, on
Wednesday after another round of Russia-US bilateral talks on
problems of cross-border adoptions and Russian children’s rights.

“Speculation often appears around the law on US adoptions and
often it is about the possibility of a retreat, about the
alteration or even cancelation of the law that is already in
force. Such suggestions would not be approved and they would not
been considered. The law was passed, it will not be changed or
altered,” Astakhov told reporters.

However, the ombudsman noted that Russia and the United States
had agreed to work together on the joint database of adopted
children and initial procedures of this project had already
started. Russia is currently engaged in merging its regional
adoption databases into a joint federal one, Astakhov said,
adding that the US specialists were welcome to study the Russian
experience.

Astakhov said that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
agency lists about 61,000 adopted Russian children in the
country, while Russian consular services have only 37,338 adopted
children on their US lists. Moreover, the Russian Education and
Science Ministry (the body in charge of orphans in Russia) says
that over 40,000 kids had gone to the United States. The
ombudsman said it was obvious that the figures did not match and
the joint database could be a solution.

Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed official from
the US Department of State as saying that the US side would
continue to encourage the resolution of all adoptions that were
in process prior to the ban “in the spirit of our bilateral
agreement and based on humanitarian grounds.”

Washington remains “ready to continue discussions with Russia
on inter-country adoptions and the welfare of children adopted
from Russia, and [we] have agreed to consult regularly going
forward,” the State Department official added.

Russia banned all adoptions of Russian children by US citizens
and by proxy of US organizations as part of the so called
Dima Yakovlev Law – a broader act seeking to
impose sanctions on US officials suspected of Human Rights
violations. Critics of the law said that it deprived thousands of
kids, many of them ill or disabled, of a chance for a better
life. The sponsors of the bill pointed at cases of cruel
treatment or even manslaughter that happened with adopted Russian
children in the United States and also the complete unwillingness
of the US authorities to cooperate with Russia in the
investigation of such cases.

The US side usually quotes state laws that do not demand that
local police cooperate with diplomats of a foreign country.